Connecting with potential clients by telling your story in an engaging way through content marketing is the way to go today. It may not be easy to envision exactly how content marketing can work for you or what’s happening in the space. Here are some examples of great content marketing innovation and links to blogs and sites that can help you imagine and explore the boundaries of what you can create for your financial advisory practice via content marketing.

At the American Society of Journalists and Authors Conference last week, I learned about companies that are innovating in this space, including:

Coke: Last Fall, Coke relaunched it’s website as Coca-Cola Journey, a digital magazine. Instead of focusing on static branding and information, the site provides interactive info that tells the story of Coke via a variety of channels including bloggers offering thought leadership and a ton of cool content marketing in a variety of formats from video to social media to infographics. This interview with Ashley Brown, director of digital communications and social media for Coke, published by the Custom Content Council, focuses on Coke’s story and how it is told through the new site.

IMB: Midsize Insider is a digital interactive content site designed to offer information to small businesses about technology issues that affect them and potential solutions. IBM is not pushing it’s own products and instead has hired thought leadership bloggers in the space and journalists to tell it’s story. The site covers a number of topics in a variety of formats, including mobile, social business, cloud computing, business analytics and security.

Check these sites out and think about what they are doing — they are offering a wide variety of content in different formats. While your financial advisory business isn’t likely to have the ability to match the depth and breadth of these offerings, they are a good example of what can be done and may encourage you to think creatively and outside the box.

Yesterday I explored how a fundamental aspect of content marketing — storytelling — can benefit your financial advisory business. Alas, regardless of how compelling your story is, your efforts to reach your target audience will be stopped dead in their tracks if you can’t get it in front of them.

That’s where distribution comes in. And that’s why, even if you don’t have content ready to distribute, you need to get your distribution channels up and running. Here’s an overview of the major types of distribution channels and why they’re important:

Social media: Now that the compliance barriers are falling and more clients and potential clients than ever are on social media channels, there is really no excuse not to be there. That being said, not every channel is for every financial advisor. Some are more friendly to specific audiences and types of marketing than others. Facebook, for example, is a great way to connect with clients on a personal level and find out what their day-to-day concerns are. LinkedIn is the top professional network where you can find out about promotions and job changes. Twitter is the leading issues-oriented platform. There’s nothing wrong with picking one of these and focusing your efforts there for a while before broadening your approach. The one tool you must use, in my opinion, is blogging. More on that next week.

Website: To distribute content effectively, your website has to engage visitors and have the infrastructure to support that content. This includes the ability to create landing pages for specific types of content and gather information about visitors who want to read your content. You need someone — whether that is in your office or a contractor outside — who can create landing pages and help you gather the information you collect so that it resides in your client relationship management system (CRM)

Search Engine Optimization: Closely related to your website, you need to make it easy for potential clients, influencers and the media to find you. By using keywords and optimizing your site, content and social media, you can make it as painless as possible for people to find you and learn more about what you offer.

Email Marketing: Even if you aren’t engaged in content marketing yet, you likely have hundreds of email addresses, if not more, of clients and potential clients. E-mail marketing campaigns using the content you’re going to create are an extremely effective method for engaging with prospects and converting them into clients.

To get ready to engage with prospects via content marketing, do whatever you need to do to get your website upgraded and looking good, even if it’s just updating the copy to make sure it reflects what you do today. Keep tabs on Google analytics to see who is visiting your site when and check various search engine terms to see where you rank. Beef up your social media profiles or at least pick a platform and establish a presence if you aren’t there.

Tomorrow, I’ll continue this series on content marketing with a look at helpful resources.